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Giant Consignment Sale Is A Deal For ‘Friends’

FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) –In an economy where the costs of kids merchandise can crush a parent’s budget, the Just Between Friends consignment event in Fort Worth is a budget seekers paradise.

The event owners call it Texas’s largest consignment show for children’s merchandise. Parents bring in gently used toys and clothes to sell. Others line up to buy it at fifty to ninety percent below retail.

“I sell my kids clothes, or consign, and then I re-buy clothes so I never really have to pay for his clothes,” said Jennifer Geary, a single mom who saves money on her son’s clothes. “I’m a full time student and I work full time with a child, so it’s extremely huge.”

Since the best clothes are bought first, Geary and others volunteer to staff the four day event in exchange for having first pick of the consignments. When the event opened to the public Friday, hundreds of people swarmed over 125,000 pieces of merchandise. As the economy went down, demand for the event went up.

“When we started out 8 years ago we did it at my business partners home and set up two tents in the backyard,” Pam Willingham, co-owner of the Fort Worth event. “And now we’re up to 75,000 square feet.”

Breeze Leonard pushed her daughter in a stroller down an aisle with several articles of clothing hung from the stroller’s handles. She traveled all the way from East Texas to save money.

“I have two girls and I’m here with my sister-in-law who’s pregnant and I’m shopping for a friend who has a little boy,” Leonard said.

Leonard said even the thrift stores near her home don’t have merchandise this cheap.

Fort Worth’s Just Between Friends event will move more than 80-thousand pieces of merchandise here in just four days. Willingham said much of the merchandise that isn’t sold will be donated to charity.

Joel is an Emmy Award winning journalist with more than 15 years of television experience. He earned his bachelor's degree in broadcast journalism with a minor in political science. He enjoyed writing at an early age, and by junior high sc...